


Here and Gone

by isthisclever



Category: Outlander, Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: And also sorry but Claire doesn't come back, Angst and feelings will abound, Brianna meets Jamie, But also joy and hope and love, Father/Daughter Relationship, Sorry guys the separation still happens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:09:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27941306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isthisclever/pseuds/isthisclever
Summary: Twenty years after Culloden -- after sending Claire and their unborn child through the stones -- life for Jamie Fraser is something that happens around him. Now a free man, he survives in the tiny spaces around the pieces of his still-broken heart.Until he receives news of a mysterious young woman with amber eyes and red curls searching for him in Edinburgh. Hope fills him for the first time in decades.Little does he know that meeting this woman will change his life once again. For better and for worse.
Comments: 180
Kudos: 176





	1. Prologue: The Hardest Step

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to wait to post this until "The Other Side" was finished, but I just can't get this one out of my head. So here we go. 
> 
> Most of my stories are fix-its for Jamie and Claire's 20-year separation. Well...this won't be that. This will be very different from any of my other stories, and next chapter you'll understand more fully why. 
> 
> I hope to post to this one once a week or so. I'm a few chapters ahead at the moment and want to keep ahead. 
> 
> As always, this story will pull from show and book canon. 
> 
> Outlander and all its characters belong to Diana Gabaldon.

Raindrops pattered on the rooftop above her. Sharp taps that seemed to drown out any other sound or thought or feeling. They rankled her, ominous and demanding as the ticking of a clock in a silent room, counting down the seconds that she stood outside the door, staring and unmoving. Frozen.

Brianna didn't know why, but the next step was the hardest one she'd taken yet. Not the one to board the plane from Boston to Scotland, nor any of the ones toward Craigh na Dun and, now two hundred years in the past, on to Edinburgh. All those steps, her feet had moved with no hesitation. Single-minded determination had spurred her onward without any anxiety or fear whatsoever, through countless moments when any sane person would have turned back.

But now, one panel of wood and glass separating her and the man she knew only by name, Brianna's feet seemed glued to the ground. Now, she stood mere moments away from her goal. All she'd sacrificed and risked came down to this. And she couldn't move.

Giving herself a shake, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose.

 _Buck up_ , she scolded herself, hands fisting beneath her cloak at her sides as she released her breath. _Everything else is for nothing if you chicken out now._

Channeling every last vestige of courage and strength toward her feet, she took that last step and reached out her hand, opening the door with a deep breath.

A bell chimed, announcing her entrance. Heat flushed her cheeks and her hands began to tremble. The temptation to strip off her cloak in the overwhelming warmth of the shop -- or was that only her nerves? -- nearly overwhelmed her, but she resisted. At least, if she couldn't control the shaking, the cloak may mask it so she wasn't meeting her father shivering like a frightened dog.

Thinking the word sent a chill down her spine, goosebumps battling with the flush of her cheeks and the sweat dewing her forehead.

"May I help you, madam?" came a voice from her left. Brianna turned, taking in a tall, thin man with delicate features. Green eyes regarded her with polite curiosity, dark curls sweeping to his shoulders.

"Hi, yeah," she answered, mind completely blank. Every rehearsed conversation vanished in the space of one breath. She only gaped at the man for a few heartbeats, and he waited, patient but expectant.

"Yeah," Brianna repeated. Beneath the folds of her cloak, she clenched her fists tighter by her side and willed herself toward coherency. "I'm looking for Mr. Malcolm, actually. I, uh..." She swallowed. "I'd like to speak with him."

"Of course, madam," the man answered, and Brianna thought she detected a French lilt to his words. "What business do you have with Monsieur Malcolm, then? If it is a printing matter, perhaps I can--"

"No," Brianna butted in, taking a step toward him with a dismissive wave of her hand. "It's a...personal matter."

"Ah," the Frenchman answered, stepping behind the counter and flipping through a large ledger propped open there. Brianna thought he snuck another glance at her as he turned the pages, perusing. "Well, Monsieur Malcolm is not expected back today and possibly not for several days, in fact."

Disappointment made her stomach flip as she considered her options.

The man looked at her indulgently. "Should I leave your name here, tell him you asked after him?"

Brianna smiled sadly at him and shook her head. "He wouldn't know it."

She could reveal who she was to Jamie. Perhaps the man would be more accommodating if she told him that she was, in fact, _Monsieur Malcolm's_ long-lost daughter. Or he may not believe her. Jamie knew only that she had once existed, not her name or hair color or even if she'd survived after he'd sent her mother through the stones; he may not have spoken about his child to anyone else in his life, let alone a work associate.

And even that assumed that, after nearly two decades spent on different planes of time, her existence still mattered to him at all.

Swallowing hard, she set this thought aside, refusing to give it credence. Her mother's love for Jamie had never faded. Brianna had to assume his for them hadn't, either.

So, yes, she could drop the bomb and tell this man Jamie was her father. But Brianna wanted to be the one to announce herself, tell him her name and who she was. She wrinkled her nose in involuntary distaste at the idea that some stranger would be the one to do so.

She huffed a sigh. "And you have no idea when Mr. Fraser will be back?"

The man's eyes flashed, and his smiled faded. "Fraser?"

 _Fuck_.

"Malcolm!" she corrected a little too loudly.

When the man resumed his courteous smirk, it held less warmth. "No, madam. Monsieur _Malcolm_ has many appointments and obligations. His schedule is often unpredictable."

Frustration brought tears welling to her eyes, as it always did. If Jamie were, indeed, working under a pseudonym here (and, given the man's reaction, she took that to be true), Brianna had reasoned that use of his real name would only arouse suspicion or outright hostility.

But now, her big dumb mouth had gone and mucked it all up. As she watched the man's face solidify into a steely mask, she worried the door to Jamie was quickly slamming shut.

"Look," she said. "I'm not here to bust anyone's chops or hurt him, okay? I want to talk with him, and..." A blush warmed her face. "And I hope he'd like to talk with me too."

The man didn't answer, eyes still calculating.

Brianna reached into her bag and pulled out a small velvet pouch. "You'd consider yourself honorable?" she asked.

That seemed to take him off guard, and his eyes softened. "I'd like to think so," he answered with genuine care, leaning forward slightly at the waist.

"And Mr. Malcolm, you care about him?"

He smiled full at that. " _Oui_ , very greatly."

Nodding, Brianna handed him the pouch. "If he is who I think he is, these should mean something to him. And if he wants to talk, I''m staying at Smith's boarding house all this week."

Brianna turned for the door. "And if he isn't, I'll be back for those this time next week. So they better not be sold off by then. I _will_ track you down, if need be," she added with a teasing smile.

Before the man could answer, she exited and gulped in the cold Edinburgh air. Hurrying footsteps carried her through the crowded streets back toward her room at Smith's. She doubted she'd leave until either Jamie found her or she gave up and tried to go back home.

 _Please_ , she prayed. _Let him want to meet me._

#

_November 27th, 1948_

_My darling Jamie,_

_For the last seven months, I've tried to move beyond you. I promised I would. To you, and to Frank. Yet these months have been the hardest of my entire life. How can simply living with the absence of you be more difficult than amputating limbs? Than fending off a feral wolf with my bare hands? Than any other impossible experience I've had to survive my entire life?_

_Because 'moving beyond you' is impossible when you're so deeply a part of me. Every day, I feel your lack as though my own arm had been hacked off. I often look down at myself, convinced that a cavernous hole has opened up in my chest that anyone can see. Sometimes, when I'm out and about and everyone is passing me by with hardly any notice, I feel I must be insane. How can they not see the wound so deep and black that I must be dying? How can they not see it when it's devouring me with agony every second?_

_Only one other time has pain like this engulfed me, and you were there to pull me through that. Even through your own grief, you are why I was ever able to live again after we lost our daughter. We only survived that with each other. Who will pull me through now?_

_I promised Frank I'd leave you and everything we dreamed and built behind. That was his condition, and you'd wanted me to return to him. To give our child a safe home. A family. But it's left me more alone than I believed possible. Some days, it feels as though the missing you and mourning you will simply stop my heart and I'll fall down dead. Part of me hopes for it. Because if that happened, I'd be one step closer to finding you again._

_Then shame washes over me because if I let the grief and heartache and misery take me, what would be of our child? The part of you that lives on, that I carried with me?_

_So each time, I stand up. I get dressed. I dry my face. And I pretend. Pretend that you don't inhabit every space of my heart and mind. Pretend that Frank can be enough for me. Pretend I can be the wife he wants and deserves._

_And I've tried. Truly, with everything I am, I have. For you, and for her._

_She came four days ago, you know. Brianna Ellen. Named for your father, as promised. And your mother, too, for good measure. I think the name has a good ring, don't you? I know you would. I hope so, anyway._

_On November 23, 1948, you became a father again. You were so sure she'd be a boy, and for a while I clung to that, as well. But she's another daughter, and she's perfect, Jamie. Looking at her, I see you in her so much already. The red wispy hair, her slanted eyes. I hope they stay blue, like yours._

_Holding her, nursing her...it's the closest I've come to joy in so long. And still, sometimes, as I hold her in the night and comfort her, I find myself crying along with her, imagining what we'd be doing had we been allowed to do this together. If you'd lived. If you'd gotten to meet your child. I know thinking this way will only make living harder, but to banish you so from even my mind, my fantasies, is unbearable._

_Frank doesn't know I'm writing to you. But doing this, speaking to you, it feels nearly like you're sitting with me again. Maybe you are. Maybe telling you my heart as I always have has summoned you to me. All the other days, you've haunted me. But now, with Brianna sleeping just beside me and writing these words to you, I feel as though you're holding me instead. I'm lighter for her, Jamie. More at ease than in months._

_Maybe he'd be angry if he knew. Maybe you'd be angry I'm writing to you about him. And where do I fit in the middle of you both? I can't be a mother to our daughter if I'm empty. And if this is how I make sure I have something to give her, then isn't that a good thing?_

_I miss you, Jamie. So very much. But I know you're near. And you see her, and you love her so much. And one day, she'll know what you've done for her. I promise you._


	2. The Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie hears of a woman searching for him in Edinburgh, and it brings his past into his present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, y'all, I have no self-control. I could not wait a week to update with this chapter. This is the crux and catalyst of this story. So...here we go. 
> 
> Possible TW: Grief.

The bell chimed as he ducked into the warmth of the print shop, shaking off the Edinburgh chill. A relieved sigh rushed from his chest. Placing his hat and coat on the counter and stepping around it, he donned his eyeglasses and glanced over the agenda book laying open.

"Milord, welcome back," Fergus greeted as he emerged from the back office and wrapped an arm around him.

Having been away from the shop for nearly a week negotiating new customers, Jamie embraced him back. "Good tae see ye, _mon fils_."

Fergus retreated after a moment and leaned against the wall. "Did all go well with the brandy, then?" For his hearty welcome, a detachment hovered behind the lad's eyes that piqued Jamie curiosity. For the moment, he disregarded it, smirking and looking back to the pages before him to see what (legitimate) business had transpired in his absence.

Smuggling spirits through Edinburgh was risky; stepping outside the territory allotted by Sir Percival, bribed to turn a blind eye, was even riskier. Still, Jamie had spent the last weeks developing trusted contacts and carefully, discreetly expanding his underground customer base. When asked, Jamie claimed a desire to grow their own profits; Sir Percival's fees were a necessary beast to do business, but it shaved their own take to barely anything, especially split four to five ways.

For the most part, his men had accepted his words, eager to earn a bit more coin for their trouble. Jamie knew one among his crew saw straight through his excuses, though. Fergus had always been perceptive. And more than that, he'd seen Jamie through the worst of his days. Witnessed the desolation in those early years. Upon returning home from Helwater, too, he'd seen the hardness and the gauntness not of body but of soul.

No, Fergus knew precisely why Jamie engaged in the illicit activities he did. Why he took the inch he was given and stretched it a mile. Fergus understood with near-perfect clarity why even after all he'd suffered and lost, he'd turned to smuggling and sedition. And why even those weren't rebellion enough for him anymore.

Because doing so gave him a purpose. Distracted him from the long-suffering pain that never diminished.

He gave his head a shake to dislodge such thoughts, squinting at the page before him. "Aye," Jamie answered cheerfully enough. "Three more taverns off the high street. I'll give ye the names and addresses next week when ye take their orders. We're down to our last barrels before Jared's ship arrives in a fortnight. Try tae unload that blasted creme de menthe, while yer at it."

" _Oui_ , Milord." Fergus shuffled his feet, hands behind his back and eyes stony.

Jamie glanced in his direction. "Somethin' amiss, lad?"

Fergus dropped his chin into his chest. "I am not certain, Milord."

He furrowed his brow and turned his full attention toward Fergus. "What happened, then? No one came askin' questions, did they?"

" _Non_ , nothing like that." The younger man looked up and swallowed. "A young woman did come by two days ago, though, asking for you."

"Oh," Jamie said, surprised. "And that's what's got ye twitchin' like a hound wi' fleas?"

"Well..." Fergus shrugged. "She asked to speak wi' Monsieur Malcolm on a personal matter, but she slipped and used your true name, as well."

Only a _hmph_ served as response. Jamie narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. Over the last nearly two years, he'd taken great pains to keep his Fraser and Malcolm identities separate and secret. Who would come looking for James Fraser in a print shop in Edinburgh? A stranger to both of them, no less?

Reaching into his coat with his good hand, Fergus pinched his lips together before taking two long, slow steps back to Jamie. "She would not leave her name, Milord, but said I should give you this." He pulled out a burgundy velvet pouch, offering it to him.

Jamie's eyes widened, limbs stiff as he looked upon the bag in Fergus's hands. His heart pumped harder. Blood thundered in his ears. No, it couldn't be...

He hadn't felt the weight of it in more than two decades, but as he took it in hand, its familiarity couldn't be denied. Trembling fingers tipped the bag and poured the pearls out, the stones cool against his skin.

Ellen Fraser's pearls.

Time passed in sharp, shallow breaths. With each one, dumbfounded astonishment transformed into hope, the likes of which he hadn't felt in so many years.

 _Claire_ had taken these pearls. They existed only in the future. But Fergus would've known Claire if he'd seen her, no matter how many years had passed.

_A young woman did come._

The only other option...

"The lass, what did she look like?"

Fergus, surprised, shook his head. "Red hair, curly, and with brown eyes. Tall. About eighteen, maybe twenty."

"And her name?"

His foster son shook his head, helpless. Fury threatened to boil over in Jamie's mind until the lad stammered,"S-she's staying at Smith's boarding house, she said, for--"

Jamie didn't hear the rest of the sentence as he flew out the door, down the stairs and through the streets, pearls still clenched in his fist. The crisp air didn't faze him even without his hat and coat. He hardly registered, too, the people he barreled past and into as he rushed the four blocks to Smith's. A brief, breathless conversation with the matron of the house led him up to the third floor, the last door on the left.

Where he stood. Frozen.

For twenty years, he'd fought through each day with half his heart living on the other side of a fairy stone. More than half, as Claire had left carrying their child. (Their _daughter_?) And with each crippled heartbeat since, Jamie had prayed for their security, their happiness. No prayers for his own entered his heart or left his lips. Such was beyond his own lot, he knew. Better to ask the Lord to take from him and give to them both.

But now...

Did Claire stand mere feet away now? Or the child that was but a faint glimmer when he sent them away? Did Claire sense him near as he imagined he could this very moment, his blood rushing beneath his skin like a great river carrying him onward?

Fear gave way to desperate longing. Two decades of aching erupted into a strangled half-sob of anticipation as he lifted his arm to pound on the door. And he waited. Every second was its own agony. When it finally opened, the air evaporated from his lungs.

She looked _so_ like Claire. The faint freckles just over the bridge of her delicate nose. Wild curls with his own coloring -- _ah, Dhia_ , the shade was identical -- escaping the clasp trying to hold them back. The bold arch of her full eyebrows, her graceful long neck. If Claire had stood beside her, Jamie knew they'd probably be the same height as well.

But her eyes. He'd have recognized them anywhere. Amongst a thousand strangers passing by, he'd have noticed them. Those perfect amber eyes he'd dreamt of every night since that last one looked back at him from a new face. A gold so deep and rich they engulfed his soul like honey over fruit.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't speak. All he could do as she stared back at him, equally mute, was unfurl his fingers to reveal the pearls she'd left for him. Those familiar eyes flicked down to them then to his own face. Jaw clenching, chin jutting out just like _her_ , she stepped aside for him to enter.

Jamie couldn't look away from the lass as he stepped heavily past her and she closed the door. She kept her back to him and pressed her forehead against the wood. Once steadied, she turned, and he feasted upon her face again.

It wasn't as open a book as Claire's; still, the mask of determined poise didn't quite cover the trepidation evident in her slightly raised eyebrows and the barest downturn of her lips. Beneath a veneer of bravado, Jamie sensed roiling anxiety.

Trembling hands hung limp at his sides. The hope that had spread through him the second he'd seen the pearls kept building. Seeing her, there was no denying who her mother was, at the very least.

Was it his imagination, or was her face molded with the lines of his own, too? The jawline, the cheekbones...

He had to know. Needed to hear it said aloud.

"Yer..." He tried, but his voice cracked. "Are ye..."

Another curl bounced forward as she nodded her head. The thumb of one hand dug into the fleshy palm of her other. "Yes," she answered. She spoke with a smooth voice, not too high-pitched, in an accent he didn't recognize. "I think so, anyway."

His breath crashed from him in a shaky exhale as he smiled, a laugh of giddy joy bubbling up as her form became fuzzy through tears. Everything in him screamed to step forward, touch her hair, her face, hold her in his arms like the babe he'd never cradled. But he held himself in check. He couldn't startle her away. If she shrank from him, he knew he'd disintegrate on the spot.

"I've imagined ye...so many times." His throat burned as he swallowed down the rising emotion. "As a lad, as a lass. But ne'er grown. Always as a bairn, tiny and perfect and wee enough to hold ye wi' only my one hand." A tear slipped down his face then, rolling over the curve of his grinning lips.

In a blink, she lunged forward and threw her arms around his waist, nearly squeezing the air from his lungs once more. His own reacted in kind, relief washing over him like he'd finally found the right salve for a persistent wound.

Christ, she was _real_ , solid beneath his hands. His blood. His daughter.

Cheek resting atop her head, Jamie crushed her to him, and his shoulders heaved with joyful sobs. He felt her own frame shuddering in his arms.

"Dinna weep, _a leannan_ ," he soothed, hand clutching the back of her head, anchoring her to him.

"You're crying too," she pointed out, her words muffled against his chest.

That earned another chortle from him. "Aye, so I am. I just..." He pulled her back to look at her face again. Wet, red-cheeked, chin and lips quivering.

She was so beautiful.

"I just had given up all hope of ever seein' ye. If there was any tae begin wi' at all. This is..." Emboldened by the vulnerability in her face, he reached up to dry her cheeks. His thumb swiped beneath her eyes, brushing away the moisture there. "This is a prayer I long ago accepted would go unanswered."

The last of her timidity seemed to melt away. Her face broke into a sweet smile that absolutely gutted him.

His hands trailed from her face to rest on her shoulders. "What..." Jamie drew in an unsteady breath, fingers tightening then loosening. "What's yer name?"

"Brianna," she answered. "Brianna Ellen."

Jamie closed his eyes, willing himself to not go to pieces. Pain and nostalgia and gratitude and elation all melded into one overwhelming wave. But it didn't drown him. He floated in it, relaxed atop its lazy current, weightless and warm.

"I am...so very grateful tae meet ye, Brianna Ellen."

"Me, too, Jamie Fraser," she replied with a smirk. A look that evoked Claire so thoroughly he lost his breath.

Each time the thought entered his mind, his tongue longed to form the question. _Is she here?_ But he waited. Jamie didn't want Brianna to doubt for even a heartbeat's length what her presence before him meant. To think that he only cared for her insofar as she'd lead back to Claire.

Answers would come soon. But for now, he focused on his daughter.

#

For more than an hour, Jamie and Brianna sat in the worn chairs before the hearth. Though desperate to learn everything about her -- her favorite food, her first word, the last book she'd read, what city she'd grown up in, did she take to healing like her mother -- Jamie allowed her to steer the conversation. Which meant answering her own inquiries about him. About his life in Edinburgh, the printing business, Fergus and his role in the shop, her aunt and uncle and cousins overflowing at Lallybroch.

No talk of Culloden. Or Craigh na Dun. Or Claire. Or Frank. Or smuggling and sedition. Or what had brought her to him to begin with. Or how long she planned to stay.

The bells had just tolled four o'clock when they fell into silence. He watched her from the corner of his eye. Brianna sat with her arms crossed over her chest, eyebrows scrunched in thought. Was she mirroring his own face just then, he wondered?

All afternoon, the questions had piled up in his mind. Why had she come alone? Or _had_ she come alone? Perhaps Claire was waiting elsewhere, wanting first for him to meet their daughter? But didn't that seem like a moment she'd want to share in with them? Or maybe she was nervous herself and wanted to make sure he'd want to see her?

No, Claire would never for a second doubt that he'd surrender his soul to Lucifer himself to stand beside her. God knew what deals he'd sign to touch her again. Run his fingers through her hair or kiss her lips.

So did she not come at all? She'd already come and gone once. Maybe the stones hadn't let her pass through again. Was she still in the future, waiting for some sign Brianna had found him?

Or perhaps, a darker part of his brain suggested, she simply wouldn't leave Frank for him. Did she even know their daughter was here at all?

Miraculous as Brianna's arrival was, confusion and curiosity grew by the moment. He was petrified, and he could stand it no longer.

"Brianna," he said, shifting in his seat to rest his elbows on the cushioned arm and lean into them, hands folded together. "Please, dinna mistake this question tae mean I'm no' grateful for ye alone. _M'annsachd_ , ye canna know what it is to sit beside ye, speak wi' ye when ye've been but a hazy dream in my head." Jamie shut his eyes and braced himself to ask. "But...do ye have news of yer mother? Is she...is she well? Is she _here_?"

Usually, he could mask his features with relative ease, hiding his thoughts behind an impenetrable front. In this moment, he couldn't manage it. He knew his face betrayed every emotion currently playing through his heart. The eagerness, the fear and loneliness, the desperate wish for her to confirm that Claire was near. That he'd see her soon.

The question didn't seem to surprise Brianna. Of course, canny lass she was, she'd have expected him to ask at some point without some explanation evident before him. Still, the way her lips drew taut and her eyes shifted to her lap didn't escape him.

"She isn't here," Brianna answered.

Jamie's stomach dropped. Face falling, he fought against dismay. He'd _wanted_ Claire to find happiness, to live a full life with their child. Prayed for it so often, her safety and her peace. If she'd found it there, if she hadn't wanted to leave it behind for him, for the dangers she knew existed here, well, he could--

"She...she died."

At first, nothing happened. Jamie heard the words. The syllables settled in his mind. But their meaning eluded him. That wasn't quite true. Jamie knew their meaning. But Claire was alive. Safe in the future. So Brianna had misspoken. Or the words meant something different in her time than they did here. That was it. It was something else. Meant something else.

But as his daughter's chin wobbled in that same way Claire's always did before she'd dissolve completely, as her whisky eyes grew glassy, the words slammed into him again with the force of a cannon. Of ten cannons.

_She...she died._

The room spun. Heaviness in his head, as though he wore a tricorn of iron, rendered him nearly blind as he fought to keep from sliding out of the seat. Colors of the room -- the blue pillows, the yellow chair, his daughter's red hair -- seemed to melt together into nothingness. Brianna's face lost form as his breaths grew shallow and heat crept from his chest to his neck to his face to his eyes.

Seconds before the breaking point, Jamie snapped himself back into focus. He couldn't crumble before Brianna. She couldn't witness that.

"How?" he finally managed to croak out, lips barely moving as he stared unseeing before him. Stiff shoulders, clenched hands.

The sound of her clearing her throat filled the room. "Nearly two years ago now. In a car accident. It's like a--"

"I ken what it is," Jamie cut her off. The phrase stirred a decades-old memory of a conversation with--

"'Twas what took her own parents, aye?" Brianna nodded.

The walls had moved in closer. That was strange. Could a room shrink like that? He'd never seen anything of the sort. But then again, he'd never known that touching a slab of granite could transport a person through time. Regardless, he felt them pressing in, compressing the air and squeezing him like kneaded dough. He's surely suffocate if they didn't stop.

Beside him, Brianna's own stoic mask looked on the verge of failing. And her face was still so new to him, Jamie didn't yet want to know what it looked like twisted in anguish. Standing from the chair, he strode to the window with leaden feet.

His fingers felt cold. But his eyes felt warm.

Gazing through the glass prevented the room from shrinking further, but he could still feel the pressure on all sides. He inhaled slowly through his nose to stave off the hysteria building in him.

_She died._

Dead. Gone. Blinked out of existence in the space between heartbeats. Such a concept seemed so at odds with the life the mere image of Claire had always imbued him with. So many times in their separation had a dream of her or some memory kept him sane. Motivated him forward when all he wished to do was stop and let the heather grow over him, return him to the earth. To think that was all she'd ever be now, a collection of memories living only within himself, within Brianna.

Every touch, bliss emanating from her fingertips across his skin, now made dust. Every kiss that burned through him with the intensity of flames now relegated to memory. Every laugh, every twinkle of her eye, every exclaimed curse and barked order and steady pulse beat he could watch throbbing at her throat when he caressed her just so. All of the past now.

The immensity of the space between them shocked him back to the present. Jamie turned to his daughter, who watched him with red eyes. He couldn't bear to leave her. But he was fast approaching the edge of his control.

"I'm...I have tae..."

She nodded, swiping away at her own tears as she rose from the chair. "I understand," she said.

Even as he felt his composure slipping, Jamie had to be sure she truly did. "Brianna, _mo nighean_ , please dinna think--"

"I understand," she repeated, firmer but with no less kindness as she placed her hand on his still-clenched fist. "I brought bad news."

Throat working, he nodded. With deliberate movements, Jamie cradled Brianna's face with his hands, placed his lips on her forehead in a lingering, tender kiss. "I love ye, Brianna, wi' all I am," he whispered, a stubborn tear edging out of the corner of his eye and dripping down his cheek.

Brianna nodded but did not respond. Jamie didn't expect her to. He'd spent two decades loving her. She'd need time to learn to love him. That, he could handle.

The other thing...

"Will ye come by the shop tomorrow?" he asked, forcing such thoughts from his mind until he could escape. "Please,"' he pleaded.

She nodded and tucked a curl behind her ear. "Bright and early. Scout's honor," she said with a weak smile. The words puzzled him, but he shrugged them off as he so often did before.

With Claire.

As that realization hit him, Jamie nodded once again and, without further discussion, fled the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And...there we have it. This is not a Claire and Jamie fix-it. In fact, it may be the opposite. Claire will not be coming back, but neither will she be fully absent from this story. But this will be about Jamie's renewed grief as well as his and Brianna's relationship moving forward. 
> 
> I have to give a shout out to @preciouslittleingenue.This story had been floating around abstractly in my head for a time, and after bingeing her "A Place to Belong" I felt an overwhelming desire to focus on this one even though I have two other WIP at the moment. (Don't worry, those will be updated regularly, as well. Fanfic has taken over my waking life and I'm not super mad about it. ;) )
> 
> There's a rough outline for the overarching plot of this as well as its eventual ending. Between here and there, though, I plan to follow canon relatively loosely; Brianna arrived at roughly the same time Claire does in canon. 
> 
> I'm totally also open to prompts for scenes/mini arcs you're interested in seeing. I don't have a set number of chapters for this yet or anything, but this will definitely be a long-haul story. 
> 
> Also note I'm essentially using Sophie Skelton as my Brianna. I always found it interesting that she's a fairly convincing blend of Claire and Jamie looks-wise, and standing next to Cait, I was always struck that there's a lot of similarities there. I know in the books, Brianna is a carbon copy of Jamie, but I wanted to flip it so she looked more like Claire to be in line with Sophie as well as because Claire is the one who's now gone. Plus, she still resembles Jamie quite a bit, but missing Claire as he does, he'd immediately notice those similarities before his own. I also plan to take liberties with Brianna's character, since she's a bit of a tough cookie to crack in her earlier books. 
> 
> Thank you all again for your support. I hope you're excited about this ride, angsty as it undoubtedly will be. Weekly or biweekly posting so I can try to keep somewhat ahead on chapters. 
> 
> Isthisclever.tumblr.com for sneak peeks, updates, commentary, direct messaging, prompts, etc. :)


	3. The Gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie fights to make it through the day. There are questions that need answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the lovely response to the previous chapters! Some answers for you here, and some more emotions.
> 
> I'm behind on responding to comments, but I promise I read every one and I will respond soon!

Jamie didn't remember leaving Smith's inn. Nor his frantic dash through the street, stomach churning. He couldn't recollect finding the first empty alleyway and retching, nearly turning inside out from the force of it. And he didn't recall sitting back against the rough stone wall and staring into the abyss before him.

The tears he'd battled back in the room with Brianna now had vanished. The cutting pain of hearing those words -- _she died_ \-- also had departed. Hours passed, and he moved not a muscle. Even as the city sounds of Edinburgh faded with the light, Jamie remained. Only the tiny movements of breath in his chest and the cloud of it in the frigid air proved he lived at all. Cold and wet didn't faze him though his body shivered and his teeth chattered by the time full darkness fell. Numbness banished all thought and knowing from his mind. Like coming awake with no memory of having slept at all, Jamie hardly knew he even existed. Was a man. A broken man. Again. Or still? No, again.

Blankness enveloped him, and he welcomed it. Anything else would destroy him. If he were blank -- not a man, whole or broken -- then he hadn't anything to lose.

Couldn't lose _her_.

"Milord?"

Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Jamie recognized Fergus's voice. Small, unsure, so very unlike the suave and confident lad he'd known for so long. That same faint flicker in his brain registered a warm body crouching beside him.

"Milord?" Fergus repeated. Jamie just shook his head, a painstakingly slow movement side to side. His lips would not yet form words. Firm hands -- more than one set -- raised him from the ground. His arm was pulled over a set of shoulders, and his feet were guided to walk. Standing now, limbs moving, Jamie winced at the sharp pains sparking throughout his body. Stiff joints and frozen extremities screamed as his life's blood rushed to warm him. Invisible needles prickled at his fingers and toes.

Jamie blinked, and he was in the print shop, sitting on his cot near the hearth, a blanket thrown over his shoulders. Fergus sat beside him. Whoever else had helped him home -- Willoughy, maybe? or Hayes? -- had gone.

 _Gone_.

"Milord, you must drink," Fergus insisted. He pulled Jamie's hands forward to wrap his fingers around the mug that was hot to the touch. A clinking brought both their gazes to the pearls still clutched in his palm.

Swallowing, Jamie balled them up and hid them against his chest. He clutched the mug with his other hand and obediently took a sip. The warmth of the tea burned his tongue before disseminating through his chest like rainwater in soil. Water bringing life. Life bringing consciousness. Memory. Agony.

Jamie fought against it. He couldn't. Not now. But as he scrambled to retreat to the empty place where the feeling couldn't touch him, he caught Fergus's gaze. His thin face twisted in confused worry, eyes wide and pleading.

And Brianna would come tomorrow.

For both his children, he had to feel it now. But only a little. The mist of the ocean but not the wave itself. The tiniest bit of it, only enough to share what he must.

He unfurled his fingers so Fergus could see the pearls again. "They were my mother's," Jamie murmured, voice rough and cracked. Clearing his throat, scratchy with cold and disuse, he continued. "'Twas the last thing I had of her. I gave them to Milady on our wedding night." Jamie pressed his lips together, as they'd begun to tremble. "I'd woken up in the night, and she was...sittin' by the fire, naught but a shadow. But so, so bonny. I still couldna believe she were mine. And I walked up behind her and slipped them ower her head. I remember thinkin' how...perfect they looked 'round her neck. How much I loved seein' her wear them. How much I loved _her_."

A droplet fell from his lashes and landed on the pearls in his open palm.

"She had them wi' her. When I sent her away. Before Culloden."

Fergus sat up straight with a sharp intake of breath that stabbed through Jamie's chest like a blade. "She...Milady _lived_?"

Jamie didn't respond. For two decades now, everyone he loved had believed her dead. Because that's what he'd told them. It had been the easiest, cleanest way to explain her absence, to explain his own. Now, meeting his son's eye, he nodded.

"But...but we never heard from her. How could she--"

"I canna. No' tonight," Jamie cut him off and pulled the blanket further over his shoulders. His head had begun to ache, but he looked into Fergus's green eyes. "One day, I'll share it all. But not now."

He swallowed another sip of tea. "All I'll say now is she kent what was tae come. That it wouldna be safe here. And wi' me already a dead man, I couldna leave her unprotected." Between two fingers, he rolled one of the pearls, feeling its cool roughness, letting it ground him. "Her or the bairn she carried."

Silence between them. Crackling flames heightened the tension as the pieces fell into place behind green eyes. "Then..."

"The lass's name...is Brianna," Jamie interrupted again, and despite himself, the corners of his mouth twitched up for a heartbeat's length. "Our daughter's name is Brianna."

A soft sound of incredulity stirred the air. Thin lips flicked up minutely as his mind continued to whir. "Milord, if...if your daughter found you here, then...then could..."

His jaw clenched as the tears returned, casting the room into a blurred homogeny. As much as he tried to draw in a breath to speak the words, his lungs remained empty. They began to burn with the effort of breathing. Another droplet escaped.

"No, lad," he finally said. He sheltered deeper into the blanket. "No, she canna."

Thank Christ Fergus didn't push the issue further. Didn't ask for more details, what had happened, where she'd been, how she'd--

He squeezed his eyes shut, lips as well. The wave he'd been floating on in Brianna's presence morphed into a crushing current, dragging him down. He fought against it. It couldn't take him. If he kept his nose above water, if he could breathe, he could control it. Push it away. Succumbing to the torrent that at this moment sought to devour him would obliterate him. And he couldn't. For Fergus, and for Brianna.

Gently, Fergus took the mug from his shaking hand. The sharp sound of ceramic being set on the table made his head throb once more. Jamie, eyes still shut, allowed himself to be laid against his pillow, another blanket to be draped over him. One hand of wood, another of flesh pulled it over his shoulders.

"Rest, Milord," Fergus whispered. Jamie nearly sobbed again just to hear the tenderness in Fergus's voice, to feel his fingers brushing a lock of hair from his eyes. Before he drifted off into a fitful doze, still blind, Jamie grabbed Fergus's hand and squeezed it. "Thank ye," he whispered.

Silence answered him. The warmth of his son's hand disappeared as he allowed the dark to take him.

#

Jamie hardly slept, rousing every few hours. Sometimes with a start from a nightmare. Other times, he drifted awake the same way he drifted off to sleep. Each time, he wondered if the entire last day had been a mere concoction of his own mind. Then he'd feel the pearls in his hand and know the truth.

He couldn't even pray for it to have been a dream. If the previous day had been only fiction, then Brianna, too, was a mere figment. And for all her words had shattered the last piece of himself he'd barely kept together all these years, he simply couldn't bring himself to wish away the gift of meeting her.

Dawn snuck in through the windows, quiet and unassuming as a farmer tiptoeing from the room where his wife still slept. When enough light filtered in that he could see, Jamie abandoned any pretense of rest and stood from the bed. Thoughts of Claire, always brimming just beneath the surface, he kept at arm's length.

In the wee hours, anticipating Brianna's arrival, Jamie washed and changed into clean clothes. He straightened the back room of the shop where he slept. After starting a fire in the hearth and heating some water for tea, he refolded his blanket over the bed. 

The pearls glinted at him from where he'd set them on the bedside table. Gathering them up, Jamie gazed at them, entranced, feet guiding him to the mantle. He lifted the lid from a box there, laying the necklace in with reverence. Then he pulled the oval frame out, stepping closer to the window to see it in the light.

Willie.

He ran his fingers over the likeness, the familiar pang of loss stabbing at him even as he beamed down at it. Wistful eyes sought to match the lad's features to his sister's. The same straight nose. The slant to his eyes. The prominent cheekbones. The dimpled chin.

And something intangible. A glint in their smiles, a poise to their posture.

Three times had the blessing of raising his children had been snatched from him. Three times he'd been made a father but barred from acting as one. Now, he'd at least met two of them, the ones who still breathed. Both favored their mothers, but to count the ways in which they were similar, to trace the bits that had to have come from _him_ , was euphoric.

A chime from upstairs broke his reverie. Stowing Willie's portrait again, Jamie ran from his room, up the steps, and into the receiving area of the shop. The door was just shutting again when he stood before Brianna, her windswept curls pulled back from her face but flowing unruly around her shoulders. So like--

"I'm glad ye came," Jamie said, shoving those thoughts aside.

The apples of her cheeks shone pink; from the outside chill or emotion, Jamie wasn't sure. Lips, too, were rosy and eyes bright as she smiled and stepped hesitantly toward him, hands clasped before her. "I promised I would." A bag hung at her side, weighted down so her shoulders slumped unevenly.

"Here," he said, stepping forward with his hands raised. "Let me, _mo nighean_."

Brianna pulled it out of his reach. "It's okay," she insisted, though not without kindness. "I got them."

His arms dropped uselessly at his side, and they hovered in awkward silence for a moment before the kettle screeched from below. Two tentative smiles flashed as he gestured for her to follow him down to his makeshift home. Brianna perched on the edge of the bed, the sack dropping with a dull thud by her feet as Jamie prepared their tea. Minutes later, he handed her a mug and held his own. He settled into the rocking chair beside the bed.

"Brianna, I..." Jamie swallowed, fingers clenching on his cup. He forced himself to meet her gaze. "I'm sorry for runnin' out yesterday."

"You don't need to apologize." Her whisky eyes flicked down to her steaming tea before looking back to him. "I'm sorry I didn't have better news."

Teeth grinding, Jamie fought for composure. Hesitating only a moment, he reached out and took her hand. "Ye need no' apologize either, Brianna." Genuine gratitude for his daughter lent him the strength necessary to smile at her with sincerity. Her face softened to see it, the stiffness evaporating from her shoulders.

They sipped their drinks for a time, neither sure where to begin. Finally, Jamie set his cup aside and inched forward on his seat. "I need to ken some things, _a leannan_ ," he stated. She furrowed her eyebrows, bold as her hair, and nodded, waiting.

The pounding in his chest echoed in his ears. Christ, this would be harder than he'd thought.

"Were ye...were ye safe? And well?"

A smile bloomed over her lips. "Yes. We were safe. And loved."

Pain like a bayonet cut him to his core. _Loved_. "So...so he took her back, then? Frank?" He didn't mean to bark the name. Such had been his wish, that Claire return to the man who could provide for them. Jamie owed him his very life. The thought of being indebted to a Randall was enough to turn his stomach sour. Always had been, even as he'd begged her to go. But Jamie knew he'd pay that debt a thousand times over for his family's well-being.

Brianna nodded. The set of her mouth spoke to details she didn't yet want to share. Jamie craved to hear them yet dreaded to know. He wouldn't press her, though. The most important questions he'd ask now. Later, the rest would come.

"And he cared for ye?"

She nodded again, eyes on the mug in her hands. "I didn't even know he wasn't...I mean..." Worry shadowed her face as she tripped over her words.

"'Tis all right," Jamie assured her, a hand on her arm. "He was a father to ye where I couldna be. Ye dinna need to pretend otherwise or feel badly about it."

A sigh rattled through her lips. One corner quirked up in thanks. Setting her mug next to Jamie's on the table, Brianna searched his face before continuing. "Well, for a long time, I didn't even know he wasn't...that I wasn't _his_. He and Mama always raised me as theirs. She told me after that that was his condition for taking her back."

"After?"

Brianna looked down to her fingers knitting together in her lap. "He died. Six years ago. Heart attack."

An older pain haunted her eyes when they found his own again. She didn't cry, wasn't even close to it as she'd been the day before. Still, the deep, bone-shattering grief that Frank Randall's loss had branded into her radiated outward like heat. A primal part of him loathed it, that she'd love and miss Frank so dearly. But as he shifted to sit beside her on the bed, placing an unsure arm over her shoulder and pulling her into his side, Jamie closed his eyes and wished grace upon the man. For if she loved him, then he'd been a good father. A good man. Had loved her and treated her as she'd deserved. As a _daughter_.

"After," Brianna continued, voice barely trembling, "Mama told me the truth. About you and her. The stones."

He bristled at their mention but didn't loosen his grip around Brianna. "And what did ye think o' that?"

Chuckling, Brianna rested her head on his shoulder, stopping his heart at the implicit, casual trust of such a gesture. "I thought she was nuts," she said. "I was almost fifteen, and here she was trying to convince me she'd traveled back in time and found a whirlwind romance with a dashing highlander."

Jamie blushed at her description, but he couldn't help the smirk that creeped up his face. "But ye changed yer mind?"

She nodded against his shoulder. "We were going through his office and found some letters between him and Reverend Wakefield." Brianna sat up, turning her body on the bed to face him as his arm fell away. "Daddy had asked him to do some research...on you. I guess Mama had told him the same story when she came back. Maybe he didn't believe her, either."

Frustrated indignation rose up in him, quelled nearly immediately by understanding. How could he blame Frank Randall for doubting her word? He, too, had struggled to believe Claire's story at the beginning. Of course, her face was too open and too honest for him to believe her words to be lies outright; that hadn't meant he'd harbored no doubts.

Hadn't he taken her to that hill, let her touch the stone and nearly disappear from him forever to settle those uncertainties? Hadn't he held her shaking, clammy body in his own arms in its shadow, looking up in fear as Claire recovered from the void he'd so nearly shoved her into?

Frank had just been searching for his own brand of proof.

Brianna cleared her throat, and Jamie returned his attention to her. "We found records in his office. A deed here, a letter there. Enough to convince Daddy that she was telling the truth."

"And ye?"

She shrugged again. "In the end, I decided that whether the story was _literally_ true or not, the essence of it was true enough. That she'd been with a man she loved, that I was his, that she'd lost him and then come back to Daddy so I'd have a family. So I let her think I believed her."

Jamie studied her face as she collected her thoughts. Pride for her resilience, the calm and open acceptance, the persistent strength displayed there buoyed his spirits. The girl who'd seen her mother in need of a lifeline and had thrown one to her. Who chose patience and support over doubt and anger. Love for her swelled in his chest.

"Well, yer here," Jamie said, smirking. "Which means somethin' convinced ye that the story was _literally_ true."

An amused snort and a roll of her eyes. So much of her moth--

"Yeah," she said through a smirk, fiddling with a bracelet on her wrist. "We were in Scotland a few years later for the Reverend's funeral. I was hanging out with his son, who was giving me a tour of Inverness. He drove us to Craigh na Dun, said it always gave him the creeps as a kid. And after Mama's stories, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about."

Goosebumps prickled on his skin as Brianna's eyebrows furrowed.

"We climbed the hill, and my head started to hurt. My skin was crawling, and...and I heard this...awful buzzing, clanging sound. Like...metal scraping together. When I looked at the center stone, it felt like it was trying to suck me in. And..." She paused, casting a furtive glance back toward him. "And I heard screaming."

Even as she sat unharmed by his side, protective ire rose in him before reason caught up with him.

"That's what convinced me, in the end." Brianna brushed stray curls behind her ears with both hands before crossing her arms, hugging herself around the middle. "Mama had described those screams, what it felt like to be in that circle. There was...nothing else that could've explained it."

She described, then, the reverend's son discovering evidence that Jamie had, in fact, survived Culloden and Claire's determination to find what became of him. How, after months of searching, their investigation had stalled after the closure of Ardsmuire. How she'd laid him to rest again, unwilling to bind either of them in the shackles of unfulfilled hope, doom them to chasing a ghost there was no guarantee they'd ever catch.

Barely a year after returning home, then, she'd--

Brianna's voice halted as Jamie flinched. The mask slipped, and his hands shook on his lap. But he nodded to her to finish, the better to distract from the current trying to pull him under. 

"Then about six months ago, Roger found this." Brianna pulled a paper from her bag, and Jamie put on his glasses. It was one of his articles. He recognized the words born from his mind and printed by own hand, his pseudonym adorning the front. "So here I am," she finished.

"Here ye are," he whispered, handing the sheet back to her and standing. Long steps carried him across the room. His arms folded and eyebrows pulled together as he strung the words together, the last important question.

"What are yer plans, then?" Jamie asked, turning. The mask, he knew, was locked in place. He only hoped the fear didn't show in his voice. "Every day wi' ye will be a gift, _m'annsachd_ , and I'll take every one wi' joy. I just...I need...if...if yer stayin'." Heart racing, hands shaking, Jamie swallowed. "Or if I'm tae let ye go soon, I need tae ken it now."

Indecision warred across her face, faint lines creasing between her eyebrows as she drug her bottom lip between her teeth. It laid him bare, stole his breath like a gut punch. Of course, Brianna must have left so much behind just to be here now. To meet him, tell him that she'd survived, had been safe, known that he'd loved her. To share the news of--

Wishing for her to stay with him was selfish, he knew. He wished for it anyway.

"Honestly,I don't know." Brianna stood, approaching him. Anxiety rippled over her face as she squeezed and rubbed the fingers of one hand with the other. "Speaking with my brain, my life isn't here. I can't go to school here, or have a career. My friends are on the other side of that stone. Everything I've ever known is there."

Jamie bit down so hard he feared he'd crack a tooth.

"But--" Moisture pooling in her eyes tore at his heart. "My parents are both dead, and I...I have a whole family here and a father I never had the chance to know. That just...seemed more important. I don't know if I'll be here forever, but...I'm not ready to run back home either. If...I mean..."

Before her tears could fall, Jamie bounded to her and embraced her. She sheltered against his chest, and he soothed his hands up and down her back as he kissed her curls.

"I'm here, lass," he comforted her. "As long as ye like, yer welcome. And ye have me here, always." His forehead rested against the top of her head, and he prayed over her. For her peace, her safety. For her to feel the all-consuming, desperate love he bore for her. Gave thanks that he could see and hold her, comfort her in pain, learn her mind and earn her love.

Long before he wanted to release her, Brianna pulled away. "I have something for you."

"For me?"

Brianna walked back over to her overstuffed satchel. Lifting the flap, she pulled five leather-bound books from it. She picked one from the bunch and handed it to him. Numbers embossed on the cover made his breath hitch.

_1948 - 1953_

"She wrote in these my entire life. I never knew what they were, but I found them before I came." Jamie ran his fingers reverently along the spine, the edges of the thick pages. "I didn't read them," she said almost defensively. "Once I saw what they were, I didn't read anymore."

He cast her a questioning glance, but she only gestured to it with her chin, bidding him to open. Sitting again on the bed, Jamie flipped open the cover to the first page.

_November 27, 1948_

No longer could he hold back the tears as he read her words, written days after she gave life to his daughter. To see in her own hand the confessions of her pain, loneliness, the emptiness and aching of her heart that had matched his own...As the droplets overtook his lids and trickled down his face, he focused every ounce of strength to keep from breaking completely.

 _Oh_ , mo chridhe. _I did love her. Even if I couldna see her, I kent she was there. And I loved her so much. Thank you_ , mo graidh. _Thank you for her and her sister both. And for livin' with such heartache for her sake. Christ, Sassenach, I miss you._

Bending the pages and flipping through, he saw that each entry was addressed to him.

_Dear Jamie. Darling. My love. Hello, Soldier. To my husband._

Gone, she may have been. But here, he had almost twenty years of her pressed between two covers. Her words, her loves and fears and angers. The thoughts she should've shared with him, the love she should've showered him in called to him from the ink on these pages.

The strangest sensation it was, to feel utterly shredded inside while also basking in a joy he'd believed long dead. Eyes stinging from the tears still trapped within, he smiled at his daughter. "Thank ye, _m'annsachd_."

Ruddy eyebrows twitched as a smile dawned on her face. "You've called me that before. What's it mean?"

Grabbing her hand and bringing it to his lips, he used his other to brush a stray curl back behind her ear. "It means 'my blessin.'"

"And the other one? 'Lee-anne-in'?"

" _A leannan_ ," he echoed with correct pronunciation. "'My darlin'. And _mo nighean_ , 'my lass.'"

Her smile warmed him all the way through as she reached up to wipe another tear off his own stubbled cheek. "You have all these names for me. What do I call you, then?"

Images of Brianna as a bairn, curly red hair tied back with ribbons, blinded him to anything else. Brianna with her whisky eyes, courtesy of her mother. Chasing chickens and riding horses. Crawling into bed with him and Claire during thunderstorms. Antagonizing Fergus and her cousins with glee.

And through it all, when he'd tickle her or scold her, kiss her or comfort her, she'd look up at him, and she'd know him as _Da_.

More than anything this very minute, he wanted Brianna to call him "Da." As he'd called his own. As Jenny and Ian's bairns called their father. Maybe one day. But he knew that was a title earned, not granted. And he hadn't done so yet.

"Ye can call me Jamie for now," he answered carefully.

"And if we're out in public?" she asked, eyebrow crooked dubiously. "Doesn't seem like it would make sense for me to call 'Alexander Malcolm' Jamie in Edinburgh."

 _Fair point_ , he thought to himself. Anxious butterflies fluttered in his center as he shifted uneasily on the cot, eyes on the floorboards. "Alex will do just fine, then. Or..." Jamie cut his gaze to Brianna, who nodded in invitation. "Ye...ye could call me 'Da,' if ye like. When yer ready."

The timidity in his own voice surprised him. For years now, he'd fronted a persona of steadfast control, at times ruthless and exacting. Even when he'd been terrified, cornered, he'd always affected an air of confidence. Yet this woman, in his life less than a day, had him trembling like a lost deer and scared beyond his wits.

Such, he figured, was the power of a daughter.

"'Da,'" she repeated. "Does that mean something?"

"No. It's only...simple."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They bond pretty quickly in this chapter, more quickly than the show (and, I think the books too, though I really need to reread). But to me, sharing this kind of pain and exchanging the stories like this really draw them together quickly. He's always craved his child. She's craving a family and a father. I hope it rings true. :)
> 
> Check me out at isthisclever.tumblr.com for updates, sneak peeks, extras, messaging, etc. ;) Happy Christmas to you, if you celebrate. If not, love to you still.


	4. The Missing Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie avoids his emotions surrounding Claire while spending the day with his daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, did a month go by? My bad, guys. I had the final portion of this chapter written before I ever posted the very first one; it was all the stuff leading up to it that took a little longer. But in the end, I like this one. :) A little bit of a lighter chapter after the heaviness of our opening sequence. 
> 
> Thank you all for your comments and love here! You guys are truly the best.

Jamie's nerves eased, slowly but surely, as he and Brianna conversed through the morning. Sometimes, silence stretched between them as they sought another question or story to share. But they were both rare and comfortable.

Hunger shone from her eyes as she listened to his tales of Lallybroch and the family still there. "Mama and Daddy were both only children," she said. Her lips flicked up in a quick smile before she averted her gaze, brows furrowed. "I've never had cousins or grandparents or any other family but them."

A vice squeezed his heart at the sadness he could see in her. How well he knew the pain of losing both his parents, and he with Jenny and Ian, not to mention an entire clan at his back.

Brianna had been alone.

He held back his emotions at the thought that she'd spent even a day thinking she'd had no one else in the world. Passing a careful hand over her red curls, he smiled gently at her. "Ye've always had them, lass. Whether ye kent each other or no', yer spirits are connected. 'Tis that way wi' families."

Golden eyes beamed at the thought before dimming again, her brows drawing together. "Do they...did they know about Mama?"

Jamie pulled his hand back, resting his palms on his knees. A nervous _hmph_ rumbled from his chest. "No. No, they dinna ken what or where she is."

 _Was_.

Before the correction could slice through him like a broadsword, Brianna spoke again. "That must have been lonely. To be the only one who knew. I saw how Mama was, and..." His stomach lurched as she looked down at her hands in her lap. "I can't say I understand a burden like that, but I think I have some idea. It was like she was...standing alone in the wind, just trying to keep from tipping over."

He could imagine Claire, by sheer stubbornness, standing tall against a torrent powerful enough to dismantle castles. Even as the effort drained her to nothing. Lines of grief creasing her face, the fire of her eyes smoored, shoulders set back in a show of strength that only those closest to her heart would see to be a farce. More than once, Jamie had borne witness to her pain, but always temporary. Always tempered by his comfort. But Brianna's words painted the picture of a woman whose pain had never departed or even lessened.

The question formed on his lips. _Was she never happy, then?_ But he hesitated. Whether he'd damned her to the same half-life he'd suffered or whether she'd eventually healed and truly left him behind, either answer would've eviscerated him.

For better or worse, he never got to ask before Brianna posed a question of her own.

"Do they know...about... _me_?"

Fear jolted through him. Would she react in anger that he'd never, in twenty years, told them of her, or Claire? This relationship with her was still so new and untested. Would she think he hid her away from shame or malice? Would something like that send her running back for the stones?

He'd die if she left like that. He'd crawl and beg her to stay, he knew.

"It's okay," she added quickly. "If they don't, it's okay."

Pressure built behind his eyes and at the back of his throat. His lips pulled up as he tried to smile at her. She looked back at him with kindness, understanding. Not an ounce of frustration or jealousy or anger. The room blurred through tears kept in tight rein.

_Christ, Sassenach, whatever the state of yer heart, ye raised such a magnificent woman._

"I wasna supposed tae survive, ye ken? That's why I sent the both of ye away, to someone who could keep ye safe. And when I lived, and I was at home wi'out her there..." He swallowed a sob as memories of those horrific, lonely days of mourning washed over him, visceral in their vividness. "Fer...such a long time, even just to think o' her, or ye, was too painful. I did anyway, o' course. Every day." Jamie reached out again, grasping her hand. "But I couldna...I couldna share ye wi' anyone. They wouldn't have understood, and my spirit wasna fit to...to explain or answer their questions.

"But they'll be mad wi' joy tae meet ye now," he said, tone lightening. "Ye'll be a welcome surprise, _a leannan_."

Brianna radiated lightness at the thought, and it infected him as well. Not for the first time (or the thousandth) since sending Claire through the stones, he thanked her for carrying and loving his babe. And now, he thanked Christ that she'd come back for him.

Jamie opened his mouth to speak again when the bell chimed upstairs.

"Mac Dubh!"

Swearing under his breath, he vaulted from the chair and made for the stairs. Before he could tell her to wait, Brianna was following just behind.

"Ye aren'a supposed tae come by the shop, Lesley," Jamie grumbled as he rounded the corner to find Lesley just inside the door.

"And any other day, I wouldna," he answered as he paced. Jamie stepped more fully into the room, and Brianna as well. Lesley paused, curious eyes landing on her for a few breaths before he continued. "Fergus sent me. Willoughby's gotten himself intae a stramash at the tavern. Be needin' yer assistance. And yer coin, most like."

"And what is the lad doin', then?"

"Tryin' tae keep the lobster backs from catchin' wind o' the tussle. He tried tae calm Willoughby on his own, but the man is drunk off his arse and none too eager tae back down."

Heaving a sigh, Jamie cast looks between Lesley and Brianna, considering. 

"Oh, no, you don't," she said. Eyebrow cocked and arms crossed, Brianna donned that same look of steel he'd come to know so quickly after Claire had crashed into his life some twenty-three years ago.

"Brianna--"

"No way am I sitting back here waiting on you. I'll stay out of the way, but I'm coming with you. And if you leave me behind, I'll follow along anyway."

 _Stubborn like your mother,_ was the first thought that entered his mind. Despite himself, he nearly laughed to think of it. Every hour, it seemed, she seemed to prove her parentage, emulating her mother in looks, attitude, and intuition.

Truly, there was little danger at hand. Even if the soldiers entered the fracas, she should be safe. And the very idea of shutting her into the shop turned his wame. He wasn't ready to be parted from her yet, even for an afternoon.

"Mac Dubh?"

"Fine!" Jamie cut around Lesley to grab his coat and hat, handing Brianna her cloak, as well. Donning them both, his tone grew stern as he instructed her, "Ye stay back, and if there's any trouble, lass, ye go to yer room at Smith's and stay. Aye?"

"Aye," she echoed with glee, threading her arms through her cloak. He nodded once and made for the door, Lesley just beside him. As they passed through, Brianna a few steps behind, Jamie murmured into his ear, " _Na dèan cron sam bith oirre. Thig a beatha ro mo bheatha fhìn."_

_Let no harm befall her. Her life comes before my own._

#

Finding Willoughby had been easy enough, as had been settling the dispute and paying the tavern owner for the rowdiness and his own trouble in containing the intoxicated wee man. As the noon bells struck, Jamie had sat the man down across the table, Lesley and Brianna on either side of him. Like Lesley before him, Willoughby's curious gaze fell upon Brianna before Jamie snapped his attention back to himself. "What the devil are ye up to, Willoughby?" he asked, voice gruff.

The man sighed and motioned for the barmaid to bring him an ale. "It was simply...a misunderstanding."

"Aye, misunderstandin' that cost me ten shillings." Jamie snatched the mug of ale that landed on the table, pulling it out of Willoughby's reach. "Speak, man."

Willoughby explained how he'd simply wished to speak to the tavern woman, how he'd paid her compliments in the poetry of his native tongue. But when he'd reached out his hand to plant a kiss there, she'd whipped it from him and, before he'd known what was happening, slapped his face and summoned the two men. Pride stung and, yes, mind clouded with drink, he'd fought back. Such had continued until Jamie had arrived and ended the kerfuffle.

"I meant no insult to the woman," Willoughby insisted. "I will repay your kindness, Mr. Malcolm."

With a resigned sigh, Jamie slid the mug across the table toward him. "No' necessary. Just be more mindful o' yer surroundin's, man. And fer Christ's sake, dinna take up wi' the whores unless ye have coin tae pay 'em, e'en for a peck on the hand."

A chuckle from beside him brought his attention to Brianna. Heat rushed to his face, horror-stricken. Christ, what must she think of him, the second day since they've met and here he was, paying off whores and pimps. And this without her even knowing that he passed many of his nights in a rented room above a brothel, his lack of patronage notwithstanding.

His ears burned as he turned to make his apologies. Their eyes met, and her laughter increased. Cheeks reddened, eyes squinted, a hand to cover her stretched lips. She was lovely when she laughed, even if it was at his expense. Despite himself, the shame and embarrassment gave way to a mild chortle of his own, eyes raised to the heavens in supplication.

"Canna remember the last time I saw a woman laughin' so ower a bar brawl," Lesley observed, eyes alight but still puzzled. "No' tae mention the whore, as well."

Brianna gulped down a few lungfuls of air and exhaled loudly through pursed lips. "Sorry," she heaved. "It's not funny, really."

"Ye seem mighty out o' breath for somethin' that _wasna funny_ ," Lesley insisted.

"Mostly just laughing at..." Her amber eyes fixed on Jamie, the faintest crinkles at their corners as she smirked at him. "You were just _so_ matter of fact and _annoyed_ at the same time. It was funny. And then you turned to me, and you were like a deer caught in headlights."

The three men cocked their heads. "In what?" Lesley asked. 

It was Brianna's turn to blush now as her giddy expression faltered for the length of a blink. "Your face was just funny," she hedged. Then she fixed Lesley with an exacting stare. "And for your information, if I were a betting woman, I'd have wagered on Mr. Willoughby here. He's scrappy. I like that."

"And a right smart bet it'd be. Willoughby here is a braw fighter, e'en wee as he is." Lesley lifted his mug and took a long draw. He set it firmly on the table with a sharp knock and turned to Jamie. "All right, Mac Dubh. Need I e'en ask the question, then?"

Jamie smiled and nodded. "Grab Fergus and bring him in. I'd like tae tell all of ye at once."

"No need, Milord. I am here." Jamie turned to find Fergus working his way toward them through the crowd. When the lad caught sight of Brianna beside him, a grin split his face in two, a look of joy that set Jamie's stomach to somersaults. "A pleasure to see you again, _madamoiselle_ ," he said with a bow to her before pulling up a seat between Lesley and Jamie.

"Glad to know you were a man of honor after all," she responded with a smirk. "Would've hated having to hunt you down for those pearls otherwise."

Liquid pooled in the lad's green eyes, thin lips pressed together and twisting into an ecstatic smile. He shook his head slightly, eyes dancing between father and daughter, waiting. The other two men, as well, fixed him with determined, begging gazes.

"Brianna," he said first, "ye've already met Fergus. This here is Lesley and Mr. Willoughby, two work associates. Lads, this is Brianna." Turning to face the men, locking eyes with each in turn, he added, "My daughter."

#

After a warm meal at the tavern where he answered what questions he could of his men, the group dispersed. He and Brianna wandered Edinburgh, taking the long way back to the print shop. Every so often, Jamie pointed out a landmark or shop she may need to frequent while they were here. Beneath it all, though, his mind reeled over the afternoon's events.

"All that worrying you're doing is giving _me_ a headache," she finally said, her calm voice intruding in his thoughts. "Sharing is caring."

The corner of his mouth twitched up. "Ye ken I used tae pride myself on bein' able tae hide my thoughts. Yet yer here but two days and can read every single one."

Brianna shrugged but didn't speak. Hooking his hands on his coat pockets, Jamie sighed, eyes trained straight ahead. "You werena bothered by that scene in the tavern, then? Truly?"

"No," she answered without hesitation. "Why would I be?"

He scoffed, scuffing the heel of his boot on the stone walk as they ambled on. "The many times I imagined meeting my bairn, I didna much imagine draggin' them to a bar brawl between my employee and a..."

"Woman of questionable morals?"

Jamie rolled his eyes but nodded. "Aye." He drew the single syllable out in a low tone.

Her shoulders bounced in another shrug. "It's your life. Who am I to judge it?"

"Ye dinna..." Jamie swallowed. "Ye dinna think me disreputable, then? Fer dealin' in such matters?"

"The most colorful people are often just a smidge disreputable," she answered with a cheeky grin. "But, no. I don't think that. I haven't known you very long, but part of me feels like I have. Mama..." Brianna didn't continue, and Jamie didn't ask. But the implication that Claire had kept him alive in his daughter's mind made him lightheaded. 

"But from what I have seen, you're a good man. Caring and honorable. And watching you with Willoughby, it was almost like..."

"Like what, lass?"

Brianna wrung her hands together, the thumb of one hand kneading the palm of her other in a gesture Jamie recognized already as a sign of her nerves. "Like what you might've been like. As a dad."

No words could answer such a statement, so he said none. Instead, a few steps later, he reached up and wrapped his arm over her shoulder, hugging her into his side. She huffed out a relieved chuckle, her breath forming a cloud in the air as they fell into step together.

Only after they'd been thus linked for a few minutes did he notice her shivering. He pulled back an inch and, for the first time since meeting her, took in her attire. A white blouse peeked from beneath the bodice of her dress. Though her skirt seemed layered, the material was thin and light. Her cloak, too, didn't wrap fully around her and barely closed in the front. She'd wrapped the edge of it around her hands and balled them into her stomach for more warmth.

"Christ, lass, yer freezin'," he breathed as he shook off his own coat and threw it over her still-cloaked shoulders.

Brianna pulled his coat gratefully tighter. "Not too easy to find period-appropriate clothes back home," she explained.

Completely unbidden, a picture of Claire popped into his mind. The very first day he'd seen her in that white shift. Even these many years later, he remembered the mixture of curiosity and shyness that had overwhelmed him in the cottage near the stones, how he'd tried to avert his eyes from her indecent dress even as every primal instinct begged him to never look away. Years after he'd sent her back, dreaming of her alone in his cave, it had occurred to him that that shift -- that _dress_ \-- had been his one and only peek into the future.

The momentary flash of her burned like fire, mingled nostalgia and grief inflamed in his heart.

"Aye, I imagine so." His voice scratched unexpectedly. Though Brianna cut her eyes at him, she said nothing. Stopping in place, he pulled his purse from his pocket and unearthed some coins. He tipped them into her hand. "Here, lass. There will be some dresses and such at Lallybroch that'll suit ye, but until we make our way there, we should find ye one or two that'll serve tae warm ye. And a proper cloak."

"Oh, you don't have to do--"

"Aye, lass, I do," he interrupted her. Tenderness melted his features and banished all despair from his mind. "I havena had the keepin' of ye for nigh on twenty years, _m'annsachd_ , but I have it now. And ye'll no' go cold or hungry while I do. Do ye understand?"

Affection swelled in him as her lips curved up in the sweetest smile he'd ever seen. "I understand," she whispered, closing her fist around the coins. "Thank you."

Hours later, he saw her to her door with two dresses, stays, a cloak, a shawl, arm warmers, stockings, and a few hair pins and ribbons in hand. Leaning down to kiss her cheek in farewell, Jamie stopped himself from mentioning her current living arrangements. _For another day_ , he promised.

The entire walk back to the print shop, he worked through his own finances in his mind and some calculations on a two-room flat nearby. Coin may be tight, but hopefully his expanded spirits venture would help cushion his wallet a bit. Either way, he would not have her staying alone at the boarding house indefinitely, paying her own way. Brianna was a woman grown, he knew, but she still needed him here. Some new clothes and a shared flat wouldn't come close to compensating for two decades of absence.

But it was a start.

#

The quiet of the shop rang in his ears. For the first time since early morning, Jamie was alone.

In his chair near the hearth, he clutched the first leather-bound volume to his chest. Fear and anticipation overwhelmed him in equal measure. He so wanted to read more of Claire's words, to see the markings of her hand on the page, outlining the workings of her mind and heart. Yet once he did, would he be able to contain the overwhelming pain still held at bay?

At last, though, he shifted his weight, bracing himself against the back rods of his rocking chair. The aroma of whisky tickled his nose as he held it before his face, taking a quick sip before placing it on the end table. Pulling his glasses from his pocket, he put them on and took a breath.

Twenty years' worth of writing from his Claire. Tempted though he was to spend however many hours were necessary tearing through every single page, Jamie knew these words would have to last him until he joined with her in death. If he read every word now, it would be like she died again.

No, he'd have to control himself. Pace his appetite so as not to devour them all in a single sitting. Even reading one every single day, he may run through them too quickly. He considered not reading another page tonight -- he had just read one this morning when Brianna had bestowed the treasures upon him -- but quickly abandoned that plan. There would be days ahead when he was stronger or, at the least, busier.

Tonight, he needed her.

Jamie flipped to a random page near the back, hoping that reading them out of order would curb his desire to continue flipping page after page past his allotment.

Biting his teeth together, holding the book far enough from his body so that any tears that spilled would not mar the page, Jamie allowed Claire's voice, still so clear in his mind, to infiltrate him, body and soul.

_February 21, 1952_

_To my husband,_

_If you were here, I'd bloody throttle you. For surely our daughter's stubbornness is a trait inherited from the Fraser side of her bloodline. At barely more than three years old, Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, she has the hardest head of any person I've ever met. Except possibly for you. Hence the throttling._

_Eat your vegetables? "No."_

_Sit still so I can brush your hair? "No."_

_Don't pull the dog's tail? "No."_

_Put your skirt down in public? "No."_

_Keep your hands away from the stove? "No."_

_Christ, I swear if I told her to toss her vegetables in the rubbish bin and eat sweets all day long, she'd shout "No" just to spite me. I know the toddler years are usually difficult, that this stage is normal. But bloody hell, what wouldn't I give for a single "Yes, Mama" amidst the million or more "No's" on a daily basis?_

_Tonight, the battle was over bath time. When demands to get ready to bathe were met with resounding "No's" for half an hour, promises of bubbles and her favorite toy duck finally got her in the water. Then, child clean and mother ready for a stiff dram, it came time to get_ _out_ _of the bath._

_Three guesses how she responded then._

_By the time hair was brushed and she was in pyjamas and ready for bed -- grumpy and fussing the whole time, mind you -- Frank came in to read her a story and, of course, she's sweet as sugar. It's like ~~flipping a switch~~ like night and day, how she is with me versus him. Perhaps it's because he's gone much of the day and sometimes the evenings, whereas I'm the one home with her all the time._

_As I should be. As is my place, I suppose._

_I'm sorry, I don't mean to be morose. Frustration and jesting aside, I love her more than my own life. You know I do. And I am grateful that she is safe here._

_In the war, I was a nurse. In the 18th century, I was a healer. And now, I'm a mum. But I find myself missing my work. It's been nearly four years now since I had a job, something other than being a housewife and mother. I give Brianna all I can of myself. But I still feel something missing. Something other than you. I know that yearning will never be sated. But the other..._

_Brianna will be old enough for school soon. I've considered the idea of going to medical school once she is. I haven't even spoken it aloud to anyone yet. I'm not sure how Frank will take it._

_Jamie, I need this. I need this for me. Because at the end of the day, beneath Frank's Wife and beneath Brianna's Mother, I'm still Claire. But I can't really put my finger on what that means without healing. I need a greater purpose. I need to contribute. I need to fix people again._

_Somewhere, somehow, I know you're smiling because you've seen it and you understand. I only hope Frank does, too, when I broach it._

_I miss you, Jamie. If you were here, I promise I wouldn't throttle you. Not that that'll bring you here anytime soon, but even so._

_I love you._

_Claire_

Eyes burning and cheeks wet as they were, Jamie was, indeed, smiling. To hear his Claire's voice, chiding and cursing up a storm, bathed Jamie in euphoria. Not words created in his own head. Words she'd actually thought. Words she would've said had they been together.

Grinning, too, because he did understand. Claire was a healer through to her bones. No matter the era, no matter the customs, he knew she'd find a way to put her healing touch to good use.

And God help the man who tried to dissuade her from her path.

Two more times, he read the passage, committing as much of it to his memory as he could. Finally, he shut the book carefully, pressing the covers together and placing it with the others in his chest far from the fireplace.

The ache within him that he'd managed to mostly avoid acknowledging during his day with his daughter throbbed. But, still, he smiled. Claire had spoken to him. Told him of their child. Of her dreams. Of a future she saw for herself, unconventional though it undoubtedly was. He could almost believe her safe and breathing in some distant place. 

Drifting off, he repeated the words to himself again and again in his mind until his Sorcha eased him into sleep.

Sometime later, a grip on his shoulder and a soft shake roused him. Grunting, blinking his bleary eyes open, he looked up into a familiar face.

"Uncle Jamie?"

 _Christ_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check me out at isthisclever.tumblr.com for updates/commentary/sneak peeks/etc. 
> 
> \- I purposefully wanted this chapter to not be so heavy on Jamie's pain for a few reasons. One, because I wanted to give my fair readers a bit of a break from the melancholia. ;) But also, Jamie at this point is thoroughly throwing himself into this new relationship with Brianna and playing the denial/avoidance game super hard. So...there may not have been tears this chapter, but that doesn't mean I'm done mangling your hearts. ;) 
> 
> \- On top of that, he is so excited to have her there and still so insecure that something will come along and drive her away or make her realize she doesn't want to stay. I wanted to highlight that insecurity while also pushing them toward a bit more of a higher comfort level. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading! I don't have the next chapter ready, but I'll try not to wait a month to have it posted.


	5. The Threat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life takes on a comfortable rhythm...for a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all! Sorry for the wait on this one. I had intended for more this chapter but decided to split it and have it in the next instead, so this is very slightly shorter than I usually post here. This was a tough one to get out; it is very much a transition chapter, and I hadn't spent a lot of time really going through it in my head, so it took a lot longer to get on paper. I hope you like it nonetheless. 
> 
> Thanks as always for your lovely comments and support of this story!

"Christ, Ian!" Jamie tossed the blanket aside and leapt from the bed. His young nephew stood before him, blond hair tied at the nape of his neck and looking up at him dolefully. "What the devil are ye doin' here?"

"I'm tired o' farm work," he answered with as much gusto as the fifteen-year-old runaway could muster. "I'd rather be workin' in the city. I'll e'en send my wages home. Please, Uncle."

Jamie huffed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. A moment later, he turned without speaking to tend to the fire in the hearth, buying himself more time to rein in his emotions.

Once before had Young Ian escaped from Lallybroch and sought refuge at his print shop, only a few weeks after he'd made it to Edinburgh himself. He'd let the lad work for a week or so, then ridden back home with him. Riding in, Ian the elder had spied them coming up the road and taken Ian the younger straight to the fence for his punishment, bidding Jamie to go in and see Jenny.

She'd been in the parlor, working on some mending. Looking up and seeing him, before he'd had a chance to speak, an unspeakable had fear darkened her face as she'd bolted from her seat. Her gaze had flitted over his shoulder, searching for the son who, by that time, had been gone from home nigh on a month. Jamie had known she'd expected Jamie to walk in with her son in tow, as he was the only place they could imagine the clotheid would run off to.

To have seen him arrive alone, he knew, was a waking nightmare.

His wame had churned even then to recognize the terror that burned through her before he could get the words out. _He's safe. And he's home._

Standing now in the dark, that look haunted him afresh. Because now, he understood it. Or he was closer, at least.

All the years he'd loved Brianna, he'd never been truly terrified for her beyond the constant simmering baseline of abstract worry and yearning. Never had he woken to find her bed empty and been left to fret with only fervent prayers that she'd gravitate toward family and only encounter friends along the way.

Now, though it had been only days, he had some frame of reference for what Jenny and Ian had gone through, the heart-stopping realization that your child was beyond your protection and you were powerless to change it. He had not yet felt the fear of Brianna being in danger or even just thinking she could be. But he could imagine. What if she hadn't walked in yesterday morning when he'd been expecting her? What if he knocked on her door at Smith's tomorrow and no one answered? He shuddered at the thought alone.

Once the flames grew large enough to cast light into the room, Jamie turned again. "I dinna suppose ye told yer parents of yer plans 'fore ye left?"

Ian rolled his eyes, affecting nonchalance. "They ken I'll come straight here, Uncle," he insisted.

"Aye, and there are no dangers on the road between Lallybroch and Edinburgh, then?"

Ian, young though he was, cast unsure eyes to the ground between his feet. "Will ye bring me home again?"

Tired, frustrated, Jamie pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eye sockets, groaning. In truth, he understood Ian's restlessness. By his age, Jamie had been in Paris at university, greedy eyes wide, his appetite for the new and exciting voracious. To be a boy near grown stuck on a farm, traversing the same halls and the same lands you'd known all your life could be a stifling thing.

No small part of him was tempted to just let the lad stay on in the shop; the more often he ran from home, the more time he spent on the road, after all, where any manner of ill fortune could befall him.

But Jenny's damn brown eyes, wide in fear, flashed before his own again.

Shaking his head, Jamie sat in the rocking chair. "I canna leave Edinburgh just now, and I'll no' send ye home on yer own." Relief swelled over Young Ian's face, and Jamie leveled a stern look at him, pointing a demanding finger in his direction. "But yer to write to them. Tonight. Tell 'em where ye are and that we'll return to Lallybroch as soon as I can take my leave from the shop again." His nephew sobered a bit then, but Jamie sensed an energy behind his eyes, surely already concocting how to delay their departure as long as possible.

Vaguely, Jamie wondered how he would've responded to this only days ago, before his own bairn had dropped out of the sky and into his life. Perhaps he'd have just let Ian stay indefinitely, maybe even put him to work on the smuggling. He was a good lad. Canny and dedicated and eager to prove himself, not to mention being in possession of more than a little of the quiet Fraser charm. He could do well, once he learned the trade.

But no. Ian wouldn't go anywhere near the smuggling. Just like Brianna wouldn't.

Sighing, Jamie leaned forward with elbows perched on his knees and hands folded.

"When we go back," he said, voice kinder, "I'll speak wi' them about lettin' ye apprentice under me. I make no promises on if they'll consent," he added as Ian's face lifted and a smile exploded across it. "But I'll speak wi' them."

Excitement faded into curiosity. "Why no' just let me write it in the letter? Ye dinna want to ride all the way there to bring me home just tae turn around and bring me back, surely?"

The corner of his lip quirked up as he thought of the grand surprise awaiting his family on his next trip to Lallybroch. "I havena visited home in some time," he said. Jamie let his head fall, gaze to the floor, to hide his elated grin. "I have...much tae share wi' them.

"Besides," he continued, standing, "if they allow ye to return, they deserve a proper goodbye from their son. And tae give ye a proper thrashin' fer havin' run away again before ye go."

Ian ended up sleeping in the cot while Jamie walked to Maison Elise for the final few hours of the night to avoid curling up on the rug before the hearth like a dog. He carried one of Claire's journals with him, having surreptitiously pulled it from the chest as Ian readied for sleep. Lying in bed now, he hugged it to his chest, fingers gripping the smooth binding. In this lonely space, silence broken by the muffled sounds of empty bliss around him, grief anew stabbed him in the heart. It stole his breath and set every inch of him to screaming in agony. Eyes squeezed closed, Jamie measured his breaths. He smothered the pain down, still not ready to weather that storm just yet.

With a shaky breath, Jamie blew out the candle to stave off the temptation to read another entry (or several). He'd already read one tonight. He just wanted her close as he drifted to sleep.

#

Jamie arrived back to the print shop early the next morning, not bothering to keep his volume down as he readied the press for the day's work. With a smirk, he allowed the kettle to screech for nearly a minute before pulling it from the hearth. And sure enough, Ian stirred and, moments later, climbed out of bed.

"Mornin', Uncle," he murmured.

Smiling, he handed his nephew a cup of steaming tea. "Mornin', lad." Ian slumped in the rocking chair and took a long draw from the drink, and Jamie leaned his shoulder against the mantel. "Did ye write yer letter last night?"

In truth, Jamie had ulterior motives for insisting Ian write the letter home the previous night. He wanted news of Brianna to come from him in person and didn't want any hint of her betrayed in his letter.

"Aye. I'll give it..." A yawn interrupted his answer. "...to ye..." His bleary eyes scanned the room as though seeing it for the first time. "...soon as I remember where the desk is."

Eyes rolling with good-natured annoyance, Jamie drained his drink. Before he could speak again, the bell upstairs dinged, and he heard voices entering the shop. Fergus and Brianna. His stomach clenched. Before Jamie could say anything, footsteps sounded on the stairs.

"Breakfast is served! Come and get it while...it's..."

Brianna's words slowed as she reached the bottom of the steps and saw Ian, a basket hanging over her arm and Fergus just behind her. Pushing off his spot near the hearth, Jamie approached her. "Thank you, a nighean."

"Sorry to interrupt," she mumbled. "I'll go if--"

"No, lass, yer no' interruptin'." Jamie took the basket from her and guided them both into the room. With a sweeping gesture toward Ian (who'd immediately stood and smoothed his hand over his unruly hair and wrinkled clothes), he continued, "'Tis only Young Ian. Yer cousin."

Whisky eyes rounded, and her tiny gasp sounded like the rush of birds' wings. "Oh. Hi, Young Ian." Her eyes darted up and down the boy's form, taking him in. Whatever she saw she must've liked, for relaxed into a smile. "I'm Brianna. Your cousin, apparently."

"Cousin?"

"Aye," Jamie answered with a clap to his shoulder. "'Tis a long story, _a bhalach_ , but she's mine."

Perhaps the lad hadn't truly woken up yet, or perhaps the gift of youth allowed such shocking news to simply roll off his back. Whatever the reason, he only shrugged and smiled back at her. "Well, 'tis very fine tae meet ye. But ye can call me just Ian if ye like. My da's no' around, after all."

"Nope, don't think so." She winked at him, one side of her lips pulled into a playful smirk. "Wouldn't want to start a bad habit then end up in a world of confusion when he _is_ around, now would I, _Young Ian_?"

"Dinna argue wi' the lass," Jamie warned with faux gravitas as he set the basket on the table near the rocking chair.

" _Oui_ ," Fergus added with a chuckle as he edged around Brianna to embrace Ian. "Never argue with the woman who brings the food."

"Oh, but _I_ didn't bring the food," she intoned in a teasing tone as she plopped onto the cot. This time, Fergus's cheeks grew warm. "Bannocks with honey and ham, courtesy of a certain old widow who lives in Fergus's building. And who...how did she put it?...enjoys her men with a bit more to keep her warm at night."

Jamie groaned, cutting his eyes at Fergus whose red face was twisted into a satisfied smirk. "Christ, lad, tell me yer no'--"

"I give the woman only conversation," Fergus assured with a Gallic shrug and frown. "And if she finds it... _agreeable_ enough to show her gratitude, who am I to refuse?"

"Oh, she's grateful, all right, and not a little bit territorial." Brianna's eyes watered with the effort to speak around her giggles. "When I arrived this morning and knocked on his door, the look she gave me could've cut stone." Brianna's gaze met Jamie's, his heart leaping to see the mirth shining there. "She did not like that he had a female caller. Not one bit."

Fergus gave her a friendly shove on the shoulder. Joy cloaked him body and soul to see them so comfortable together already, laughing and teasing as though they'd grown up beside each other. As they should have.

 _Ye should see them,_ he thought, chest tightening. _We would've all been happy together, Sassenach._

Even just that stray thought threatened to open the door on the pain he'd carefully avoided for days. Slamming it shut with a determined huff, he doled out portions from the basket for everyone to eat. As they worked their way through Mrs. McPherson's gift, Jamie mostly stood silent, watching the three of them chat easily.

"So, will Milord take you back to Lallybroch, then?" Fergus asked Ian carefully, wiping his hands along his trousers.

Jamie shook his head. "I dinna have the time to leave again so soon. Orders to be fillin' in the comin' weeks and all," he added with a significant look to Fergus, who tipped his head into an imperceptible nod. Brianna stiffened beside Fergus, but no one noticed. "The lad will work here in the print shop 'till I can escort him home."

"Speaking of which," she broke in, standing from the edge of the bed. As soon as her chin jutted out, Jamie at once relished that familiar stance and steeled himself for what was to come. "I want to work here too."

" _A leannan_ \--"

"If I'm left to just putt about town with nothing to do, I'll go crazy," she interrupted, arms crossing and face determined. "I'm a fast learner, and it means I can see what it is you do."

"Ye canna do the work in yer dresses, lass."

"Then I'll buy some pants," she countered, arms folding across her chest. "Or borrow some of yours."

"Christ, lass, ye canna--"

"Oh, I _can_ , just fine, I think you'll see. I promise I won't go parading around town in pants, Lord forbid." A bold red brow arched, and her golden eyes seemed to burn with resolve. "So if my wardrobe is really your biggest concern, forget it. Unless...you have some notion that I can't do it because I'm a woman? Which, let me tell you, hasn't stopped me before and I don't plan to let it here. _Now_."

Ian and Fergus sat silent, eyes flicking back and forth between father and daughter. Jamie's stance mirrored Brianna's, his blue eyes squinted in thought.

 _Christ, ye are_ so _like her._

"On one condition," he finally said.

"Which is?"

"Ye leave Smith's and move in wi' Fergus." He glanced to his foster son, hoping he wouldn't mind the invitation extended on his behalf. After an initial look of surprise, Fergus nodded to him again, and Jamie turned back to Brianna. "I dinna like the idea of ye stayin' at the boardin' house alone indefinitely. Besides, there's no reason tae run through all yer coin. Fergus can escort ye to the shop in the mornin's, too."

Brianna lowered her arms, and her face relaxed into a triumphant smirk. "Agreed. Though I'm not gonna be the one who breaks it to Mrs. McPherson."

#

A rhythm settled over the print shop over the next five weeks. Brianna moved into Fergus's flat, and Ian took over the cot downstairs while Jamie spent his nights at Maison Elise. Fergus, Willoughby, Hayes and Lesley handled most of the liquor distribution -- including the extra customers Jamie had secured -- with occasional help from Jamie while he usually oversaw Bree and Ian in the shop.

 _Bree_. Claire had called her that in some of her journal entries. The first time he'd seen it, he'd wrinkled his nose in distaste, knowing neither of his lasses understood the meaning of the word in Scotland.

A disturbance.

 _Well, they were both that_ , he'd thought to himself with a soft smile. _The best kinds._

Nine entries he'd read, so far. Sometimes, he reread old pages in his desperation to hear her voice and commit every word of it to memory. It felt like starving slowly. But rationing, he knew, was the smarter longterm plan. Just enough to keep his spirit alive. Never sated, but strong enough to stifle the grief to a dull ache in his wame.

He still wasn't ready.

As he buckled his boots and prepared for the day ahead, already he yearned for the nighttime hours. He hadn't read a new entry from her in five days, and his defenses were low.

Also, he'd meet with Sir Percival today.

He'd been in league with the customs officer for nearly the entire two years he'd been in Edinburgh, paying for the man's silence to smuggle in the brandy and wine from France. And paying dearly. Six months ago, his scheming to extend his illicit business beyond Sir Percival's reach had begun. It had started slowly, only one additional customer off the High Street to ensure his men could handle the load without being caught. Today would be his first meeting with the official since adding three more unauthorized clients to his list.

While he was confident all would go according to plan as it always did, these meetings were tense affairs by their very nature. Jamie huffed a sigh and rolled his shoulders up and back, willing the stiffness to evaporate from them.

Claire entered his mind, as she was wont to do on low days like today. For the hundredth time, he wondered what her reaction would be to his extralegal endeavors. Would she be angry, intrigued, amused, disappointed? He imagined her reaction a thousand different ways. Each scene flitted through his mind, all dark and misty and so very difficult to hold on to.

He'd have taken any of them at all, even her disgust at him, if only it meant he could see her face clearly again.

So many things he remembered vividly, even after twenty years. The exact way she'd exclaim _Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ_ when she was frustrated or startled. How the goosebumps that prickled her skin felt beneath his fingers. The distinct jabs of Faith's elbow or foot from within her belly. Scents of earth and plants that emanated from her hair.

All these memories lingered with him, small moments ingrained in his mind with perfect clarity. And in his daughter, he relished the gift of seeing his wife's lovely eyes before him in living flesh, perfect replicas. But Claire's face grew muddier every day. Like a painting, he remembered the shape and colors of her, but they fell flat in his mind. Reading her words written in her hand had breathed new life into the image of her held within himself, but still she fell so far short of the real, living Claire.

Every time he acknowledged that truth, he broke just a little more.

Yes, he'd even watch her walk away from him forever again if it meant he got to at least see her face one more time.

Putting such thoughts out of his mind as best he could, he made his way toward the print shop. He passed the morning with Ian and Brianna, printing an order of advertisements. Just before the noon bells were due to strike, he gave them both instructions for the afternoon as he prepared to leave.

"Where're you off to?" Bree asked as she readied the ink for the next page.

The corners of his mouth turned down in a slight frown as he shrugged, striving for casual. "Just a meetin' with a prospective client. Needs a book printed."

"And you can't meet with him in the office here?"

She looked up then, face innocent but eyes calculating. Jamie hadn't shared his under-the-table dealings with Bree and had forbidden the men from mentioning it, as well. Whatever Claire's feeling would've been of his endeavors, he'd have his daughter nowhere near it as much as he could help.

"I follow the money, _a leannan._ If they ask tae meet elsewhere, then so I shall."

Without waiting to see her reaction, Jamie climbed the stairs and departed, grabbing his coat before pulling the door shut behind him.

Jamie walked into The World's End ten minutes later and, with a nod to the tavern owner, made his way toward the door in the corner. Through the door, down the stairs, around the corner. The noon bells rang out as he stepped off the final step onto the basement floor.

"I do not like to be kept waiting," Sir Percival droned, shoulders pulled back and a sneer tugging at his mouth. The muffled gongs hummed behind his words. Daylight streamed in from a tiny window near the ceiling and illuminated the dust floating about in the air.

Shrugging, Jamie pulled the purse from his pocket. "Dinna arrive early, then." He tossed the pouch toward the man before him. It clinked as it landed atop the wooden barrel. "Your cut."

Percival stowed the purse after a cursory glance inside.

"We're finished, then?" Jamie asked, already turning to leave.

"Not quite yet." The scant light did not quite reach Percival as he paced forward two slow steps, hands clasped behind his back. Wary, Jamie narrowed his eyes and flexed his fingers, ready to grab the knife hidden beneath his coat at the merest provocation.

"You know, I allow your...activities to continue with a certain understanding," Percival said slowly. A weight dropped in Jamie's stomach, but his face didn't betray him. "Our arrangement is based on a mutual trust. Such a thing, once broken, could have disastrous effects."

With everything in him, Jamie resisted the urge to swallow. Instead, he frowned and gave his head a quick shake. "I dinna ken what ye mean."

Percival shot him a patronizing smirk. "You do not get to be in my position without learning how to manage your assets," he said, closing the gap between them with another step. He stood a mere foot away now. "Or without a few useful birdies who like to sing in my ear from time to time. A tune that's caught my fancy of late has to do with Mr. Malcolm about town...in the company of a young woman." Pausing, Percival leaned an inch closer. "A woman with your same red hair."

It took every ounce of control he possessed to not react to the man's words.

"There are other whisperings, too, of course," Percival drawled, spinning on his heel to pace in the other direction. "Which, if ever proved true, would irreparably damage our relationship. And if I cannot _trust_ you, then I cannot _protect_ you. Or her."

He turned and paused then, eyes boring into Jamie as his words landed. Jamie repressed the impulse to drive his knife into Percival's eye socket.

"Now, I should think the health of our working partnership, as well as your new... _acquaintance's_...sufficient motivation to accept my new price, do you not agree? Let's say...a twenty-five percent increase, as a show of good faith."

Jamie's heartbeat throbbed in his fingertips and his temples. It roared in his ears, a whooshing sound that muted all else. His eyes burned at the edges as his vision narrowed to Percival before him.

No, he wouldn't use a weapon. More than anything in his life, Jamie wanted to exact his vengeance on the man with his very hands.

"I dinna ken what _whisperin's_ ye've heard, but I've done nothin' to breach our arrangement," Jamie said through gritted teeth as he stepped closer. "And I dinna take kindly tae threats."

"Oh, no threats here." Percival raised his hands between them in truce, but the corner of his mouth rose and his eyes narrowed. Menace rolled off him like mist over the moor. "Only incentives to toe the line. I am not a man you wish to anger."

A younger Jamie may have argued further. In years past, without the harsh experiences that had wisened him to men such as this, he may have challenged the man for threatening his kin, his _daughter_. A more rash version of himself simply may have beaten the man senseless. He was certainly tempted now.

Instead, Jamie spun and stomped onto the bottom step of the staircase.

"I'll expect the deficit to be paid by week's end, Mr. Malcolm."

He didn't respond or even pause as he ascended, his pace quickening as soon as he reached the street. Seconds later, he was sprinting.

Jenny's panicked eyes flashed through his mind again. He wondered if they mirrored his own as, for the first time as a father, the fiery grip of terror threatened to squeeze the life from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some excitement picking up! A few notes. 
> 
> \- I had so much trouble writing Ian meeting Bree because of course we've got more first meetings coming up and I didn't want it to be repetitive. In the end, I wrote his reaction as sort of in stride. Really, he's only known Jamie for a few years at this point; seems reasonable that there's a lot of his life he doesn't know fully about, so what is really a big surprise is just a part of the story of his uncle that's still unfolding. 
> 
> \- Likewise, I really wanted to address that Jamie has a _veeeeery_ different approach to Ian's running away from home/working on the illegal side of his dealings now that his own kid has come home. Even just knowing her a few days, he understand Jenny and Ian so much more now, and I don't think he wants to cause them pain now that he has some basis for understanding what it feels like. I hope it comes off as believable. 
> 
> \- We also don't get a lot of Bree/Jamie specifically in this chapter, but i also thought showing her interactions with Fergus and Ian to be important. Writing Bree with Fergus is somehow a lot easier than with Ian, but hopefully that will come with time. Again, hope it all rings true for you. Even though she's just met everyone, she's so hungry for a family that she falls into pace with them really quickly. 
> 
> \- Also, I realized after posting that I never showed Brianna learning where Fergus lived, but it happened on their walk through Edinburgh the day before. :) I'm going to go back at some point and add a line or something to make that clearer. These are the mistakes that come to you after you decide to post a chapter at 1 am 
> 
> Isthisclever.tumblr.com ;)

**Author's Note:**

> Be sure to check me out at isthisclever.tumblr.com for sneak peeks, commentary, updates, etc. :) Thanks for reading!


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